The plane that landed in South Africa on Friday without a permit was operated by Healy Malungu and was on its way to carry 20 passengers from oil company Chevron, which had been grounded due to the cancellation of TAAG flights, and had already returned to Luanda.
The clarification came today by the Angolan Embassy in South Africa, after news of the plane being arrested, at Cape Town Airport, due to the lack of a mandatory permit from a foreign carrier (FOP).
According to the Angolan embassy, the airline (Heli Malungu) “applied for permission to fly and land in the territory of South Africa, but it did not wait long for a response, which is why the South African authorities did not allow the five-member crew to leave the plane, as well as Preventing passengers from boarding.
The plane, a Bombardier Dash-8 Q400 D2-QUE, was to carry 20 passengers of the oil company Chevron, who were stranded in Cape Town due to the cancellation of flights by the Angolan airline TAAG, whose pilots had begun a flight. Friday’s strike.. ten days.
The press note issued by the Angolan embassy confirmed that the plane had indeed returned to Luanda and that the situation had returned to normal, as contact was made with the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation, which thanks the diplomatic mission for the “rapid cooperation” to overcome it. the situation.
News reported by the online newspaper Eyewitness initially indicated that the plane was chartered by TAAG, but the airline denied any connection to the incident.
The airline confirmed in a press release that “TAAG, Linhas Aéreas de Angola denies any connection with the aircraft that has been detained at Cape Town International Airport in the custody of the South African authorities.”
The aircraft “does not belong to the TAAG fleet, has not been contracted by TAAG to perform any charter flight, nor is it registered in TAAG’s Air Operator Certification with the National Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC.), the sector regulator in Angola,” he says, in The same statement.
